Duck
by Irhaboggles
Summary: After getting roped into being the Danger Babies' swim coach, Professor Squawkencluck finds an unexpected source of help in the local pool's new lifeguard: Mr. Snuggles. But it makes sense that he would know how to look after kids, being Dawn's caretaker and all. And the best advice he can give the worried hen is this: stop being a chicken and start being a duck.


With the Danger Agency's normal training pool being shut down for cleaning and maintenance, this left the Danger Babies to go swim at one of the local public pools instead. And not only that, but with the usual instructor ill, the duty of giving the swim lessons somehow managed to fall upon Professor Squawkencluck's feathered shoulders.

"I don't even know how I got saddled into this! I'm not a duck!" she sighed to herself in exasperation as she led several little kiddos over to the shallow end of the pool. "I don't even _like _swimming... or teaching... or kids..." the hen clucked unhappily to herself, a small flash of shame running through her body at that last remark. But it was true! Kids just weren't her cup to tea. And yet here she was now, about to teach them how to swim!

"Oh, do go on then, Professor! It'll be fun, Professor! It'll be easy, Professor! It'll be a day off from work and the lab, Professor! How hard could it possibly be for someone like _you_, Professor? The kids will be alright, Professor!" the hen cruelly mocked all the people who had goaded her into this job. The lesson hadn't even started yet and the kids were already causing chaos. Some of the kids were running around the pool deck, some were jumping in and out of the water repeatedly, some were having breath-holding contests, some were having splash-fights, some were already trying to swim laps all on their own (which impressed Professor Squawkencluck where it didn't worry her), some were trying to drown one another (how on earth did kids find this _fun_?!) and some were just being stupid, shrieking with laughter and making all sorts of silly faces, jokes and gestures at one another as they rough-housed in the water. A day in the lab would've been far more fun and far less stressful... Even an unstable nuclear reactor would've been easier to deal with than a dozen or so unruly youngsters.

"Why me?" the hen repeated, but she really meant it! What on earth had her friends seen in her that screamed "good child caretaker"? Unless it was the old stereotypes about mother hens, in which case, Professor Squawkencluck wanted to give each and every person back at the agency a good, hard peck in the eye for going off of that stupid old stereotype!

"I'm not a duck! And I'm not a "mother hen"! I shouldn't have to be doing this!" she griped as she carefully lowered herself into the water and attempted to bring order to the chaos. It didn't work very well. Half the kids seemed too preoccupied in their own games to care what she said and the other half seemed tickled to see a chicken bobbing nervously around in the pool. It was like they could smell her fear and discomfort because they wasted no time in flocking around her, laughing and pointing, splashing water on her and trying to climb onto her back.

"Give us a ride, Professor!" some of them pleaded.

"I'm not a boat!" she shot back, trying to shake them off of her feathers. "And I'm not a duck!" she added again, under her breath. She was silenced by a well-aimed splash from one of the more devious Danger Babies. She didn't get paid enough for this job!

But against all odds, there did finally come a time when Professor Squawkencluck managed to get the kids to at least start doing warmup laps. It took nearly 20 minutes and she had to trick them into thinking it was some sort of big race, but she did manage to get them all in the water properly. But their forms looked terrible! Their strokes and paddles were really quite pathetic... But Professor Squawkencluck didn't dare stop any of them to tell them as such, for fear that she would never get them focused again if she broke their fragile concentration now...

"Oi! No runnin' on the pool deck!" a familiar voice caused Professor Squawkencluck to whip around. There, emerging from an office towards the other end of the pool, was a giant pink teddy bear. He was chastising a young girl. His sharp, authoritative growl was enough to get her to slow down, and actually seeing his hulking size got her to stop moving entirely. She did not run again for that entire day.

"Mr. Snuggles!" Professor Squawkencluck gasped, and so it was. The giant bear trudged over to a nearby lifeguard chair, which was comically too small for someone as wide as he, but since he was only made of fluff and stuffing, he was able to sit atop the chair without breaking it. He heaved himself into it, creating a tiny tremor as he landed inside, and then he rested his elbow on his knee and his chin in his paw. He had only just started his shift, it looked like, and he already looked dead tired.

"I can relate," Professor Squawkencluck murmured to herself. And that was when Mr. Snuggles caught her staring up at him.

"Oi! What're you looking at?"

"Oh, great!" Professor Squawkencluck mumbled under her breath, embarrassed. Could this day get any worse?

But sensing that she would not be able to work her way out of this one quite so easily, Professor Squawkencluck only took in a deep breath before she approached Mr. Snuggles' lifeguard chair, trying to look calm and polite as she greeted him.

"Ahoy, Mr. Snuggles!" she weakly waved a wet wing up at him. "Lovely day for a swim, eh?"

"If you say so," he muttered back down at her, glaring a little, still leaning on his life ring and resting his chin in his paw with a tired expression.

"Well, uhhh, what brings you to this part of town today? Is Dawn with you?" the hen continued to try and strike up a friendly chat with the large pink bear, though she wasn't quite sure why, given the fact that his family was typically at odds with her own.

"No," came the short, sharp reply. Ok. So clearly, he wasn't exactly hopping at the chance to talk to someone else either.

"Well, then, I'll just leave you be-" but before Professor Squawkencluck could go, Mr. Snuggles actually did elaborate, much to her surprise.

Apparently, with Dawn busy in school, Mr. Snuggles was trying to find something else to do with his life so that he didn't just waste away from boredom, stuck inside Dawn's room all the time. He finally decided to try and get a job and this pool was the first place he could think of. Of course, the man in charge of hiring hadn't been too pleased to see a giant pink ball of fluff squeezing its way into his tiny office in order to request an application, but all he needed to see was a reference letter from Dawn and August Crumhorn both, and some rather sharp plastic claws, and Mr. Snuggles was hired right there on the spot.

"Fastest day of me life!" the bear muttered, a tiny spot of pride entering his voice. He even sat up a bit straighter, clearly pleased at being able to land his first job so easily. Professor Squawkencluck gave him weak chuckle. She could see why the man in charge of hiring might've reconsidered so quickly. Even if Mr. Snuggles was only a ball of fluffing and stuffing, he could be quite scary just due to his sheer size alone.

"But wait a minute! Why did you choose the pool?" Professor Squawkencluck asked a moment later, noting the fact that Mr. Snuggles had said this was the first place he could think of to get a job. She wasn't trying to be rude, she was just wondering what drove him to come here, of all places. Wasn't fast food or retail the usual first option? Professor Squawkencluck was keen to know what had drawn Mr. Snuggles to the pool...

At this question, then, the first look of sincerity that she'd ever seen on Mr. Snuggles' face appeared. An almost rueful smile spread across his fluffy face and there was a note of insecurity, shyness and sheepishness in his voice as he answered her question.

"The kids," he confessed finally.

"The kids?" Professor Squawkencluck echoed in confusion. He only nodded back, eyes unusually gentle and warm, and then he explained...

Whether it was part of his own personality, or something that Dawn had given him when she first brought him to life, or if it was just all part and parcel of being a teddy bear, Mr. Snuggles had always had a soft spot for little kids. Even if Dawn was the only one he really knew, and even she was the one he loved most in the world, Mr. Snuggles still felt fondly towards any little kid that he ever met. The mere _idea_ of kids made him glow, so of course, it had only been natural for him to choose a job where he could be around them frequently. Maybe the pool job wasn't the easiest or most fun (he couldn't exactly swim with the kids because the chlorine was horrible for his fluff, and as a lifeguard, he wasn't exactly supposed to be playing in the pool anyway) but he still got to watch the kids laugh and play with _each other _and that was more than enough for him.

As he continued to explain this to Professor Squawkencluck, she felt her own heart melt just a little. She still may not have liked kids, but listening to Mr. Snuggles talk about them made it impossible not to smile at least a little. His devotion to children made her happy, and she found it (and him) quite adorable. He was so unabashed about how much he loved kids, and being with them. How could she not feel at least a bit sappy? It was cute, she thought, how his first idea of a job had been child-related, so while food service and retail hadn't even occurred to him, working at a public pool had been his very first choice. There was something sweet about that sort of devoted innocence, in Professor Squawkencluck's opinion.

"So what brings you here?" he asked, finally turning the question back to her.

"Oh! Me?" for a second, Professor Squawkencluck seemed to have forgotten the answer herself, but after a moment of scrambling, she managed to retell the entire mess to Mr. Snuggles. In response, his usually-surly expression finally turned into a look of sheer delight. He slapped his knee and bellowed with laughter at all the bad luck Professor Squawkencluck had to endure before finally getting a cherry on top: becoming the swim coach.

"Ha ha ha! Oh! That's just rich!" the teddy bear laughed. Because he was so big, his voice was so loud that it echoed all over the pool room, but for once, he didn't seem to care at all. Instead, he only continued to laugh, almost falling out of his "highchair" because of how tickled he was.

"It wasn't that funny," Professor Squawkencluck grumbled embarrassedly, but she did feel a little bit of pleasure that Mr. Snuggles found her story so entertaining. But then again, he _did_ have the mind of a child, so of course he'd find such misfortune to be funny, so long as it wasn't his own.

But after a time, the bear settled back down.

"You know what, hen? I think I got a few tricks that may help you deal with the little ones," he said, sounding unusually kind and intelligent. "You see, the way these kids work is through excitement. You gotta be loud and fun! Big and bright! Do crazy things, silly things. I know it may seem dumb at first, but it'll keep their eyes trained on you, I promise. They'll think you're the most interesting thing ever and it will command attention a lot faster and better than if you keep up the science-y persona. You may not be a duck, but you're gonna have to start acting like one if you want any chance of teaching these kids how to swim!" Mr. Snuggles said. Professor Squawkencluck, meanwhile, wilted. But she knew he was right.

Yes, it would be embarrassing for her to act like a fool in such a public area, but Mr. Snuggles had a point. If she wanted any chance of doing this right, she would have to shed her pride and go for it. She had to stop being a chicken and start being a duck, so to speak. Besides, wasn't that exactly how she had charmed Dawn the first time they ever met? It hadn't been Professor Squawkencluck's incredible lab that had caught Dawn's eye, but the capacity for it to be used as a playground. And then when Professor Squawkencluck and her friends had needed to infiltrate Dawn's home, they hadn't gone in as soldiers, but as fellow princess. They had gone in to meet Dawn at her own level, and they had subdued her not with threat or force, but with big, bright, shiny, pretty, princess things! They had been silly, playful and flashy, and that had been what caught her attention. And Professor Squawkencluck was sure that that instance was what Mr. Snuggles was referring to now. She felt a bit embarrassed that he was bringing that little incident up, but he didn't seem to be holding it against her anymore, so she let it slide.

(Little did she know that she was exactly right. While Mr. Snuggles still took personal offense to the fact that Professor Squawkencluck had essentially betrayed Dawn with that nasty little trick of hers, she had managed to make Dawn smile for at least a few minutes and that was enough for Mr. Snuggles to at least be willing to help Professor Squawkencluck out a little bit, if not reconcile with her completely).

"Yeah," the bear sighed at last. "If you wanna get to these kids, you gotta get down on their level first. Do things that'll entertain them. Make it a challenge. A game! Somethin fun!" he said. "Be like a duck. Do something funny, silly and crazy! I mean, I know chickens can swim well enough, but you've gotta be better than that! Wilder than that! You gotta be a duck!"

"But I'm not very good at playing," Professor Squawkencluck confessed, repeating to him what she had once told Danger Mouse long, long ago.

"Well then let me show ya!" the bear offered, leaping down from his perch. As he hit the ground, the entire pool room rumbled a bit.

"You don't think you'll get in trouble for abandoning your post?" Professor Squawkencluck asked, steadying herself from the little quake.

"Won't you?" Mr. Snuggles retorted with a laugh, pointing to the kids, and Professor Squawkencluck felt her stomach drop. Gah! He was right! She hadn't bothered to even look in their direction in nearly 10 minutes now! Who knew what kind of-?!

Oh. They were fine. They were perfectly fine. They were all still alive and swimming. Huh...

"Don't you worry," Mr. Snuggles grinned proudly at them. "While we were talking, I was keepin' an eye on them for ya, and I'll tell you that they all got quite a bit of skill. Sure, it needs a bit of work, but let's see what we've got to work with first..." then, with undisguised excitement, he led the hen back over to the shallow end of the pool. Professor Squawkencluck, meanwhile, felt a rush of gratitude and admiration for the bear that he was keeping watch over her kids even while they were locked in conversation with one another. Mr. Snuggles had hidden depths to be sure! She certainly was learning a lot from him today! And boy did she owe him bigtime for picking up where she had slacked off!

"Alright, kiddies!" he declared once he reached the shallow end of the pool. "I'm going to be your new instructor for today!" and the kids all looked so stunned at Mr. Snuggles' size and color that their eyes and mouths went wide and they listened to him with rapt attention.

"See?" he whispered to Professor Squawkencluck as the kids ogled him. "Easy!" and Professor Squawkencluck couldn't deny that she was impressed. Maybe today wasn't going to be so bad after all... Mr. Snuggles was proving to be an excellent help after all! She would owe him for this... So. What was that advice he had given her again? Oh, right! Be like a duck! Well, time to see if it would work just as well as he promised!

"Righty, then, first things first!" the bear clapped his paws together. "We _all_ gotta get in the pool! None of this "coaching from the sidelines" stuff! We're all in this TOGETHER!" and then he jumped in, creating a huge tidal wave in his wake (he knew he'd regret what the chlorine was going to do to his fur, but for that very moment, the chance to get to play with some kids overrode his worries). The kids, meanwhile, shrilled with joy, already enamored with their new, fluffy, pink bear-coach. Professor Squawkencluck, meanwhile, felt her shoulders slump. Uh oh.

"Oi, Professor!" Mr. Snuggles managed to shout before the wave came crashing back down over her head. "Remember that bit of advice I gave ya just a few seconds ago?... DUCK!"

**AN: Here's your second request, Zarius, "Squawk and Snuggles meet up at a pool and Snuggles helps Squawk control the wild Danger Babies". This was another fun one to write! You're awesome!**


End file.
